Al­most two weeks af­ter Ce­dros crick­eter Rashme Deoa­jit was mur­dered, po­lice have ar­rest­ed a sus­pect.

The 47-year-old man was ar­rest­ed on Sat­ur­day night in Cou­va, po­lice con­firmed.

Rel­a­tives and friends had been plead­ing with the pub­lic to as­sist in find­ing the man, who was known to Deoa­jit and her fam­i­ly.

Deoa­jit, 28, a sales mer­chan­dis­er, of Tat Trace, Granville, was well loved in her com­mu­ni­ty, a mem­ber of Play­ers Sports Club, and was the on­ly girl and youngest child amongst three sib­lings.

The sus­pect had been stay­ing at her home. She was last seen ar­gu­ing with him around 8 pm on March 16. Ear­li­er, they had been lim­ing and drink­ing with her rel­a­tives. Her fa­ther and broth­er, who live near­by, heard her phone ring­ing in­side her home the fol­low­ing day, and her broth­er went through a win­dow, where he dis­cov­ered her body on a bed around 6:30 pm. An au­top­sy re­vealed she was beat­en on her head and stran­gled, rel­a­tives said.

Homi­cide Re­gion 3 de­tec­tives are in­ves­ti­gat­ing.

Se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cer gunned down in Curepe

Two days af­ter a Davis Street, Bel­mont man was mur­dered, an­oth­er man from the area was gunned down, this time while lim­ing in Curepe.

Po­lice re­port­ed that 26-year-old Ash­ton Her­nan­dez, a se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cer, was found dead af­ter gun­shots rang out at Gor­don Street, Curepe.

Po­lice said when they re­spond­ed around 6.55 pm on Sat­ur­day, they found Her­nan­dez dead. While po­lice could not say if Her­nan­dez was in­volved in gang ac­tiv­i­ties, his killing was gang-re­lat­ed.

Last Thurs­day, Ke­mar “Ja­maikie” Miller was killed in a dri­ve-by shoot­ing along Davis Street, Bel­mont.

Po­lice re­port­ed that the 28-year-old was sit­ting on an emp­ty beer case with three oth­ers, in­clud­ing a teenag­er, around 9 pm, when a grey Nis­san AD Wag­on drove past them.

The car stopped some dis­tance away, as three masked gun­men got out and shot at the group. Miller died at the scene, while passers-by took the wound­ed to the hos­pi­tal.

Po­lice said the 14-year-old boy was shot in his chest and was ward­ed in crit­i­cal con­di­tion, while a 27-year-old man was shot in the right leg.

Her­nan­dez’s killing pushed the mur­der toll to 86 for the year.

10 mi­grant held dur­ing raids in PoS

Nine Venezue­lans, in­clud­ing a man who was de­tained for en­ter­ing the coun­try il­le­gal­ly three years ago, along with a 26-year-old Cuban woman, were ar­rest­ed for en­ter­ing the coun­try il­le­gal­ly af­ter they were held dur­ing a raid at a ho­tel and a bar, which po­lice de­scribed as broth­els, over the week­end.

Po­lice re­port­ed that the 10 were among 100 peo­ple de­tained dur­ing a raid at the Co­pa Ca­bana Ho­tel on Dun­don­ald Street, Port-of-Spain and APEX Bar along West­ern Main Road, St James.

Af­ter in­ter­view­ing the 57 Venezue­lan men, 40 Venezue­lan women, two Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic women and one Cuban woman, Im­mi­gra­tion Di­vi­sion of­fi­cers found that the 10 were in the coun­try il­le­gal­ly.

Po­lice said the de­ten­tion of the 100 non-na­tion­als took place be­tween mid­night to 4 am, dur­ing “Op­er­a­tion Steady Guard,” which tar­get­ed the two busi­ness­es. The op­er­a­tion was led by ASP Cadette and In­sp Dur­ga, along with of­fi­cers of the Gang and In­tel­li­gence Unit, Port-of-Spain Task Force, Besson Street Po­lice Sta­tion, Ca­nine Unit, and Im­mi­gra­tion En­force­ment Unit.

Po­lice said both busi­ness­es are typ­i­cal­ly used for il­le­gal ac­tiv­i­ties out­side of pros­ti­tu­tion, lead­ing to them be­ing thor­ough­ly searched. While noth­ing il­le­gal was found, the of­fices ar­rest­ed the 10 peo­ple, who are be­tween the ages of 18 and 26.

One of the nine Venezue­lan men was among 64 non-na­tion­als who sued the state in 2023 af­ter a de­por­ta­tion or­der was filed against him and was de­tained at the then Cha­gau­ra­mas de­ten­tion cen­tre at the De­fence Force He­li­port base.

In his Au­gust 8, 2023, mat­ter, then High Court Judge Ricky Rahim ruled that the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty was re­strained from en­forc­ing the or­ders of de­por­ta­tion against the ap­pli­cants un­til their ju­di­cial re­view claim was set­tled. Rahim al­so or­dered that all 64 be is­sued or­ders of su­per­vi­sion un­til the mat­ter was set­tled, as he or­dered their im­me­di­ate re­lease.

The man, who was ar­rest­ed at the APEX Bar on Ju­ly 9, 2023, was among 196 mi­grants and asy­lum seek­ers held there dur­ing a joint po­lice op­er­a­tion. The He­li­port was de­clared a de­ten­tion cen­tre on Ju­ly 25, which Prescott ar­gued meant his 64 clients were de­tained un­law­ful­ly for at least two weeks.